Sabre Thinking

12 Sep / Why is your newsletter sleepy? 6 ways to wake it up!

At some point in time, most businesses feel their newsletter lagging. Perhaps you used to get a lot of feedback and responses from excited customers and subscribers, but then things started slipping. What most companies don’t recognize is that newsletters, like all elements of a strong marketing strategy, need to evolve with time. Thankfully, there are many ways you can liven up your company’s newsletter to keep readers engaged.

First, let’s look at three common reasons that newsletters are losing traction for other businesses:

The content is not focused on a specific topic or need

Subscribers are not being sent through any onboarding process to get the back-story of the company

Newsletters are either being sent too frequently or not enough, causing unsubscribes

Now that we’ve identified the most common problems with newsletters, let’s take a look at how you can wake up that newsletter and get old subscribers re-engaged, and new subscribers flowing into your virtual doors.

1. Create a memorable subject line

When sending out your newsletter emails, it’s critical to put much focus into the subject line, as this is the first thing people are going to see in their inbox and make a snap decision as to whether they even want to open the email. It’s not that your subject line always needs to be trendy or hip, but it needs to be on brand and something that will catch the subscribers’ eye – or be immediately recognizable as something they have been anticipating.

2. Focus on the design of your newsletter

While the content is going to be central to your newsletter, it can be easy to forget that the newsletter design is also a major deciding factor in whether or not someone will take the time to read the content. Additionally, you’ll want to make sure the newsletter looks and functions properly on all screen sizes. With so many people opening emails on their phone or tablet, you want to be sure readers are getting the best user experience possible no matter what device they are browsing on.

Your newsletter can play a significant role in your marketing program and as such should reflect your branding just as your other essential marketing materials do. The design should be carefully customized and should not resemble a canned and generic template. It should be fun (where appropriate) and engaging! The layout should be “easy on the eyes,” and the content should flow well, lending itself to easy reading.

3. Send subscribers through an onboarding process

Just as we mentioned earlier, your subscribers need to be brought up to speed so that they connect with your brand and content before they start receiving the regular flow of newsletters. We suggest setting up a simple onboarding sequence, which is a series of emails that introduces new subscribers to your brand, shares the best of previous content, and allows them to get to know your company.

4. Solve a particular problem through the content

While newsletters can house many different elements including upcoming events, articles, and offerings, it’s important to remember that people likely subscribed because of a problem they had. The more specific your company can get at solving that problem, the more traction you’re going to see with the newsletter.

5. Set up a way to measure engagement

Once you’ve jazzed up your newsletter design, created eye-catching subjects and included the most potent content that your subscribers will be excited to read, you want to make sure you have a before and after measure in place. You could compare open rates of the newsletters, track links within the newsletter to see how many people are clicking through to learn more, or find another metric that best measures your newsletter. Don’t forget to celebrate the increases!

6. Update your delivery method

Depending on the nature of your company, it might be an excellent opportunity to consider switching up the way you deliver your newsletters, or at least adding to it. If you happen to collect addresses as part of your opt-in process, it might be more effective to send the newsletter through the mail and allow customers and subscribers to have a physical copy. Again, this very much depends on your industry and company, but it’s an idea worth trying on.

You may also consider teasing the newsletter issue on social media. Perhaps highlight an article on a hot topic or another juicy gimmick, enticing followers to subscribe to the newsletter.

So there you have it – 6 ways to freshen up your newsletter and bring it back from a deep sleep. As always, be sure to continue following our blog for the latest marketing tips and inspiration for your business!